I read an article on how a military member accidentally shot his friend when he pointed his weapon at him. How could this happen since they are trained in weapon safety?

Nothing is said about whether or not the individual had been drinking.  From first hand experience, some people when drinking tend to ignore or forget any and all safety training. Drinking might make them feel like they are fully in charge and know what they are doing. Or on the other side they just don't care.

It's called a fight flight sympathetic nervous system response and it can be automatic in the setting of a real threat to life or safety. Unfortunately, many military combatants also suffer from PTSD and the associated sympathetic nervous system hyperarousal can literally "trigger" incidents like this!

It is unfortunate,the humans continue to make bad choices. If you drink do not drive yet they do. do not text and drive yet they do. And once again anyone that has ever handled a gun knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that you always handle a gun like it is loaded and chambered. Sometimes thoughtless, careless people hurt or kill innocent victims.

Military training for gun safety ? Every person who hunts in the state of Pennsylvania has to pass a gun safety course. To me, common sense tells me not to point a gun at someone.
We all know the rules of the road. Kids take driving courses and have to pass a test to get a driver's  licenses. Yet, I see kids and adults texting while driving at 60 miles an hour on route 95.
I stopped trying to make sense of the "what what were thinking ?" question.
You may not realize the danger of a car, but a gun. Frank had a point .... with military training ... I'd question the accident theory !

I agree with answers here. It does not look like an accident.

Seems to happen, all the time.  I remember a friend telling me about a game the marines would play in the basement.  They'd quick draw against each other and see who would win.  The rules were simple; don't pull the trigger and we'll just judge how fast we are.  Someone pulled the trigger, dead marine.  

The military drills in the boundaries, rules, skills, it's truly up to each human to remember them.  Happens in all walks of life and all types of societies.  

You can't fix stupid.

                                                                      Ron White.

Yes. Not my primary occupation, but I train people gun fighting skills ...mostly as learned from Navy Seal and Spetsnaz teacher/associates/friends.

Hard to understand how anyone with a familiarity with guns could do this. The idea of "don't point a gun at what you don't want to kill" is not entirely true and only fits some applications. For example anyone who wants more than novice training will experience working against an active shooter(s). So yes, we shoot each other in training (with simmunitions of course) but must ALWAYS know status of gun, and control it with location and action of trigger finger. Even with simulated weaponry there is always danger of causing blindness with errant projectile. 

Accidentally is the optimum word---seriously!

Amazing. I learned in elementary school never to point a gun at anyone, not even a toy gun. This is why we need to start teaching gun safety in schools again like they did when I was a child.

My father spent over 27 years in the U.S.Army and accidentally miss-fired his weapon in his Livingroom a few years ago.  He was distracted and believed his weapon to be unloaded.  So even the best trained soldier can have an accident.  We sometimes forget that they are human as well.  As far as our business, yes we take weapons safety seriously by not allowing them on the premises.